Transcript for the Piece Audio version of Summer on the Hill

June 2009
Summer on the Hill,

As I pass the two men beginning their work at the top of the road I smile a good morning.
“‘ow are you young lady?” The older man calls out. He yearns for the old patterns of his youth and a witness to his memories. He is standing, barely upright, and holding tight to the railing that is protecting the pavement repair from the pedestrians and the pedestrians from the repairs. Though it is only eight in the morning the day is already hot. It will be another scorcher in this week of high temperatures. If the old man wasn’t holding on to the rail he would be keeling over from a life time of smoking three plus packets of Woodbine cigarettes a day and his resulting emphysema. A young Ukrainian man, one of the eighty percent of ‘foreigners’ who reportedly have taken the manual jobs in England watches as we exchange our morning greeting. It is the Ukrainian who does the work, guarding the old man’s job with his strength. He is bewildered by the exchange between us two. Now that property values are rising once more Camden Counsil workers are circling the district of Primrose Hill with improvements. The daily work kills the old man by inches but he has his job and can hold his head high in the pub at evening tide.
This week the temperatures are soaring in England and London in particular. People are urged to be cautious, to take water with them when they travel. Deaths are recorded with the old and the vulnerable and a thousand ‘extra deaths’ a week are expected during this period of high temperatures. Britons delight in grumbling about the weather being too cold, to humid or too wet. But now the sunshine that they crave has come to the island and for once the grumbling is stillled to a murmur in the collective conversation. But the high temperatures bring with them humidity and on Monday the humidity broke with a hour long torrential rain storm that froze into hail the size of marbles. The hail beat down on the umbrellas with the rapidity of sniper fire. When I got home there was a crest of hail nestled into the door mat, and by the time I changed out of my wet cloths, so had the weather. The evening settled in with a ‘what was all the fuss about’ feel. But it was unnerving. The hot is hotter, the rain harsher than ten years before. It was as if a glacier had crumbled from one of the poles and the skies were weeping from frustration at our thoughtless behavior.
The Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Championship is being played out in SW18 and broadcast for hours on Television. It is taking it’s place above and below the lead story of Michael Jackson's passing. Jackson was as beloved here in England as maybe anywhere else in the world and posters have been up around the city for weeks about his scheduled return round of concerts. But this week girls rode the underground with newly curled Michael Jackson hair and shop windows were dressed with models in Jackson Style. After a few days the country turned; away from Michael Jackson, away even from the sexual antics of Mauro Berlusconi the Italian Prime minister, the muddled mathematics of Gordon Brown the British Prime Minister and even the last members of parliament to be named and shamed for their financial explodes are getting off lightly with back page treatment as the tennis gladiators battle on through the semi finals. Film stars come out to see sports stars and if Andy Murray is to meet up with Andy Roddick on Sunday the Royal Box may be filled with royalty for the match.
On Friday evening we walked down The Broadwalk in Regent’s Park to Queen Mary’s Rose Garden. The roses are in full bloom now, folding one vivid colour into another in waves as each flower bed peaks it’s glory. The khoy are swimming lazily and a couple of big fins and tails break the water as they come to the surface to feed in this large man made pond that houses an inordinate variety of ducks, morehens and even two pairs of Black swans. The people who gather to sit in the gardens are from all walks of North West London. From further in the park comes the sounds of loud voices calling out to one another. A Shakespeare play is being performed in the outdoor stage beyond the delphinium bed but I can’t tell which play it is. We sit down contentedly on the grass in the midst of Friday’s city picnickers. There are small groups of friends, pairs of lovers and in front of us a gathering of Arab Muslim women of all ages. They have come to the park to be together after the Mosque Friday Call to Prayers. For Friday is the day of worship for the Muslims. The group in front of us consists of about eight women of mixed ages. One granny is sitting on her shopping cart which has the capacity to fold over into a chair and she is ensconced comfortably beside her friends who have taken over the benches. This is a weekly meeting place and as I watch, seeing little but the dark burkhas moving in agreement, disbelief and occasionally laughter, I feel the tightness of this clan and the strength it brings them. A single girl sits across the pathway from the group. She swings her legs absentmindedly, her headscarf is pushed back away from her face and she looks lonely. Young Muslim families walk the pathway. Some of the mothers are wearing full and brilliant burkha’s that proclaim once and together their place in the family and their beauty. Fathers move faster than mother’s in catching wayward children. It is only through the children that we can make eye contact. The parents are now more wary than even before of casual intercourse with the Anglican community around them. Feelings and tensions remain high in this city and though this is a good neighborhood all is not well under the veil. As we take our time lying on the grass, picnickers come and go. Shakespeare gives way to a protest speech that seems to come from the bandstand not far from the mosque. We get up and slowly make our way through the park and along the river home through The Broadwalk.
London is often such a mixture of restriction and promise that it is laughable. Much of Regents Park has been renovated into new sports pitches for school use (because the schools have sold off their own sports grounds in real estate deals) as well as more adult weekend use. With great trepidation there is now an eighteen month trial for bicyclists to ride through and along The Broadwalk.
On our street #34 wants to rip down their house and build another one going down two basement levels for a Cinema room for their children. #47 has been a star moving us all to write letters of protest. Permission has been denied and now is at appeal.
I spent Saturday morning writing my second letter before going outside for some recreational weeding. Soon a little figure on an old black bicycle, complete with 1960's front basket, peddled down Kingstown Street. He was dressed in old jacket and tie and the bike wobbled as he passed me. I had to hide my smile as he turned back to me. "Which one is #34?" he asked. "That, over there. A tear-down and two basement levels.” "Good Lord," he replied and we chatted like scolding sparrows about the letters. I tried not to have my mouth open and keep my mind on the conversation at hand. Then Alan Bennett, MR. B, my hero in literature and now community solidarity peddled off to post his letters - three copies - of objection.

This has been a Letter from A. Broad.
Written and produced for you by Muriel Murch
Theme music composed and performed by Pete Horner.
1358 © words